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Tag Archives: Warhammer

Now I’ve finally caught up on January’s posts, I can finally start on February’s.

So …yeah, I finished the “February Challenge” to complete a neglected model on the 1st of February, when I motivated myself to get this guy off the shelf and finally complete him. Of course, with a challenge like “finish a neglected mini”, it’s the sort of thing that I’m naturally going to get done a whole lot of times, since I’ve got WAY too many neglected minis and intend to continue what I’ve been doing for quite awhile and concentrate a lot of my effort on finishing the very same, rather than starting too many new figures.

I really put this challenge together after considering a comment from IRO, who asked if I’d be setting up another challenge after Painting Decembuary. Initially I didn’t want to because when there are too many challenges it can become tedious, but then decided to set up one that’s easily achievable, not only by my own self, but by others.

This guy was released back in September 1991, and I got both the Tenderiser (still completely unpainted) and this model, the Whirlwind (predating the Space Marine armoured vehicle). I never got the Juggernaut, which is a kind of Siege Tower thing. It was too much for my finances at the time.

The model was originally painted very similarly to the “official” one, but with a slightly more Khorne-oriented paint scheme, much of which still shows through today. Of course, over the last 35 years or so, the figure got knocked about, most of the “lawnmower” (as we called it) got broken up, and well, you get the idea.

Last year or the year before, I gave him a new base, and did a little bit of touch-up, before getting a bit stuck and a lot distracted. So since then, it’s been sitting around, in the way, on the shelf, on the table, move it here, move it there until this painting challenge did finally motivate me to just finish the bloody thing already. In that sense, I actually have IRO to thank for finally getting this thing completed.

When I eventually focus on painting my Chaos Dwarves, I’ll fit this guy into the army for whatever system I’m using. Until then, he’s mostly a display piece – but most importantly, he’s finally done!

The earliest I can find this particular orc is in the 1988 “blue” catalogue listed as an Orc Champion, though he’s an alternate sculpt of “Mannik” from the ORC1 Warrior Orc range, found in the 1987 Citadel Journal, so it’s likely he was originally part of that range, given his dodgy facial sculpt. The catalogues get pretty ropey from 1987 and back. Anyway, he’s a duplicate of a figure I painted myself way back in the period between ’88-90 who I found and reburbished recently, with a small touch-up and a new base. The plan was to complete the pair and post them together, but I lost the original shield from the original Orc, so until I find it and remount it, this guy stands alone.

I’ve gone for much the same colour scheme as I did with my other older orcs (that came later, circa 4th edition WHFB), and painted both the red of and the the skull on his stomach guard as a reference to those figures. The highlight of this figure though, is his shield. The freehand orc-face design was originally painted way back in my early days – I think I originally planned for it to go on a war machine – but when I saw it sitting around after all these years, I decided to get it onto a figure, and this guy fit the bill perfectly. All I really did besides the rim was add the upper level highlights.

With his not-especially-interesting front, and cool looking shield on his back, this guy is a shoo-in to be in the rear rank of any force on aesthetic value alone. 😉

Ok, so only our friend here with the double-bladed axe “Gerloc” actually appears in the 1987 Citadel Journal under the F3 banner, but the other two models are both variants on “Gudrud”, who is on that same page, so I’m comfortable with placing these in the same vintage. A further variant appears in the 1988 “Blue” catalogue under the Barbarian range, along with a Valkyrie-styled figure who I kept in a baggie alongside the boys here for many years. She’ll be painted alongside the Shieldmaidens and Valkyries from Foundry.

This first figure clearly draws heavy inspiration from Frank Frazetta and Boris Vallejo’s Conan artwork, as do so many barbarians from so many ranges.

This figure was a real motivator for me to learn new techniques for painting black hair, which (let’s face it) can be a right pain in the arse, since we don’t want it to look blue, or grey, or dark brown. Hopefully I’ve managed to pull it off (thanks, Duncan!) and if I haven’t – blame Duncan!

Gerloc here is pretty much also Conan. The spike from his helm was lost long ago, but at least I managed to keep the rest of him intact enough over the years.

I painted these three together, and tried for a slightly more tanned look to their skin than my usual Caucasian skin without appearing too ruddy or too orange. Not that you can really tell here with no models to compare the trio to.

Also on these three, I avoided painting on any tattoos, as I’d be temped to with any models that have a lot of muscular skin showing. Given that they’re old-school models that are a representation of a particular style of artwork (Frazetta, Vallejo) I left their bare skin bare of ink.

This third figure is actually not Conan! He looks and feels to me like a barbarian warlord. The stance, topknot of hair, helm under his arm and especially his cape really work together to suggest a veteran of many battles who now leads a party of warriors to battle.

Of course, his stature being that of a figure circa the late 1980’s means that he looks like a peon when stood next to a newer Barbarian from pretty much any company – let alone something like a Khorne Bloodbound (his spiritual successors), so he may well be relegated to veteran warrior or even a regular warrior/cannon fodder when/if he’s used in any games.

I was painting a similar Chronpia model alongside these guys, but he got bumped at the 11th hour so I could concentrate on this trio of truly old-school models. He’ll be done soon, and the four shall again be united!

Finally – a note and shout-out to those people whose Blogger/Blogspot blogs that I follow – especially Curis and The Responsible One. For whatever reason, either my computer, or my browser, or something is screwy and so when trying to leave a comment in Blogspot blogs using my WordPress account often (almost always) throws me into some weird loop of selecting my username and “publishing” my comment, but then it goes back to selecting my username, and then round and round we go. So I might not be commenting much – but I’m still out here watching and reading! And if you’re unfamiliar with their blogs, you should definitely check them out!

After a week of not being able to find my camera, and therefore given the option of using my newish phone for photos (sorry, Samsung, you’re not quite there yet) instead, and also not quite sure what I had taken in the last batch, I’ve found it last night!

This fine fellow is Citadel’s Wight King with Baleful Tomb Blade, originally released a few years ago as part of the Vampire Counts line, he survived the transition to Age of Sigmar pretty much intact, now being a part of the Deathrattle sub-faction faction of the Death Grand Alliance. Or to those of us who don’t much care about all of that, he’s a cool looking Wight model. Like, I’m not a guy who hates AoS. The system is fine, and the models are as great as ever (generally!) but the background doesn’t do much for me, so I mostly ignore it.

This lord has an impressive cloak. I don’t usually highlight strong colours to white or near-white, especially when using colours as opposed to shades of grey, but this cloak seemed to warrant it as a rare example.

He’s based on a 40mm resin base from Back-to-Base-ix. In retrospect, I think he’d “fit” much better on a 32mm, but he’s been mounted and part-painted since before 32mm based were a thing, and I wanted the resin base to elevate him to more of a hero status. I’ve also used round bases on my fantasy models for aesthetic reasons since long before AoS was a thing, and since heroes in KoW don’t have a facing, I saw no reason to consider changing. The crimson flowers and grass tie him in with the other heroes in the Undead army.

The only strong colour on this model is really the red, with the sword having a blueish tint that marks it as a magical blade, rather than simply an old, corroded one. Perhaps it glows blue when Orc-kind are nearby?

Another trio of early-90’s Slayers today. Not a lot to write about these guys as we’ve seen others of their ilk before quite a few times by now. These three have been painted with paler, more faded – slightly pastel even rather than “natural” – hair.

A couple of different tones of blue for the stripey trousers, but both wearing the traditional style. Once again, I think the tattoos turned out well.

I really need to get the final batch of these guys stripped so I can start painting them. I’ve still got the commanders to complete, as well as a small selection of LE figures from Citadel and metals from other sources like AoW and Mantic. And then there’s the plastics. And the Fyreslayers…

Having finished the last of the Marauder Slayers the other day, we move to another pair of the Citadel Giant Slayers.

This pair has gotten a slightly more natural shade of orange for their hair than many of the others. Whether they used a different dye or theirs has simply washed out somewhat, when mixed into the units, they’ll help to offer some variance while still maintaining the visual coherency with the others.

As with the last half-dozen or so slayers that I’ve finished, I’ve attempted to again vary the stripey trouser just slightly from the neverending run of identical blue stripes. Clearly not by a lot, but again it’s simply about adding a little bit of variation into the unit so they still look like a unit but not entirely homogenised and uniform. They’re not a freshly-raised unit of Napoleonic Chasseurs, after all.

I’m quite pleased with how the tattoos came out on this pair as well. That’s one thing that this project has really helped me with. Well, two. I can now paint many variations of orange-to-ginger hair pretty much with my eyes closed. I’ll have some command guys photographed and posted hopefully within a few days, and then I need to start getting some group shots of the Slayers (and Vikings, and others) taken and posted!

Just as with the dwarves I’ve slowly been cranking out, I’ve been trying to keep a few old-school goblinoids on my painting plate. I’ve tended to choose them based on the criteria of how easy they look like they would be to get painted, so simple clothing and/or lots of armour drives them to the top of the list when I browse my box of metal greenskins.

The orc on our left is one from that crossover period between WHFB2nd and 3rd editions. A Kev Adams sculpt with the fetching identifier of “Orcs with Dual Weapons 05”. Despite his rather awkward posing, it’s a decent model. I used some ochre brown in the skin mix of the two orcs here in an attempt to start varying the skin tones of these guys a bit. While it (obviously) adds more yellow to the overall look, I’m hopeful that it’s not too garish. I’ve opted to use a metal Foundry Viking shield instead of a plastic, though I’ve kept the design to simply block colour.

Speaking of garish… the Goblin is from the C12 range circa the mid-late 1980’s, though I’m not sure of the exact year as the catalogues are spotty from that era.the cast I have here is pretty rough, so it was a matter of doing the best I could within a reasonable amount of effort for a tiny model. It’s a Kev sculpt, but predates his “signature” goblin look, with smaller, tighter facial features and an integral shield rather than a boss for plastic ones. He actually sat in a case half-painted for many years before I noticed him recently and decided to get him done. Which also took awhile…

The central model on the 32mm base is the newest of this trio – a 4th Edition Orc listed in the Black Catalogue 4 (1994 filled with 1993 models) as “Orc with Sword 3”, though he’s a bit bigger in stature than his fellow, “Orc with Sword 3” painted awhile ago which is what led to me mounting him onto the larger base. He’s not as big as the actual Big’Uns, but he’s not far off.

…which kind of leads to my question for you, dear reader. While I’ve been working casually on these Fantasy Orcs, With the promise of 8th Edition looming, I’ve also been eyeing off my old-school RT Orks and the more recent 40k Brian Nelson Orcs that I started working on in 2005. (OK, recent is relative). The 40k plastics I mentioned, being larger certainly overhang their 32mm bases, though the “official” size remains 25mm. I feel that they’ll look better on the 32mm bases, just as their classic counterparts, Space Marines do. I’m not yet convinced either way on which way to go – the better aesthetic choice? The “official” choice? Wait and see what conventions on basing that 8th brings on release? At this stage it would not involve a terribly large amount of rebasing. Any thoughts?

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Photobucket Image Apocalypse:

Just a quick note to let visitors to my blog know that I am working my way backwards through the blog, repairing the image links that Photobucket cut off in their attempt to self-immolate their business. It’ll take some time, but it’ll get done.

My apologies for the inconvenience.

Update: Posts fixed back to 25th Sept, 2016 – Yay, over a full year of posts are intact again!

(and quite a few older posts beyond that, though not in any special sequence!)

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